"Hartz IV" in Common Language
Although the official term for long-term unemployment benefits is still Arbeitslosengeld II, most Germans, even news programmes and politicians in parliament, refer to it as Hartz IV. Hartz IV was voted Word of the Year 2004 by the Society for the German Language. Meanwhile it has become a synonym for the class of non-working poor and is used as a prefix in multiple contexts (i.e. low-brow daytime television programmes are called "Hartz-IV-TV" by critics).
Read more about this topic: Hartz Concept
Famous quotes containing the words common and/or language:
“I think what everybody calls a miracle is just common sense.... You can look at the attitudes when people come in. That’s why they call it a miracle. These are black kids and they’re not supposed to know the things they know and achieve the way they are achieving.”
—Marva Nettles Collins (b. 1936)
“I shall christen this style the Mandarin, since it is beloved by literary pundits, by those who would make the written word as unlike as possible to the spoken one. It is the style of all those writers whose tendency is to make their language convey more than they mean or more than they feel, it is the style of most artists and all humbugs.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)